Currently, users of the communication networks receive unsolicited calls. These unsolicited calls are a result of the phone numbers being publicly available, either by the user herself or by some other person/organization that is privy to the user's number sharing it with others. Once the phone number has been shared with any person or organization, the phone number becomes public knowledge. Organizations with which a user shares her mobile number could, perhaps, be prevented from sharing the knowledge further by enacting and enforcing privacy laws. In spite of this, there are many instances of organizations sharing their databases with marketing companies, for a fee. Preventing transfer of numbers between persons is even more difficult. Other than being a source of bother for the users, the unsolicited calls also load the communication network, due to activities such as telemarketing.
There are some solutions to avoiding unsolicited phone calls such as barring the calls from chosen numbers. After receiving the first unsolicited call and determining that the other party is a source of unsolicited calls, the user could bar the call at the operator network level. However, the user will still receive many such first calls. Also, this will still result in a load on the network operator, as the calls are initiated, but are only not delivered by the network to the user.
Another option available to the user is the user being selective in sharing her phone number. However, this is not a practical option for the user, as she may still need to share the number with some people or entities to receive some information. The need is to control the passing on of the same to others. Not sharing the number will result in the user missing out on information from useful sources such as her bank.
A further option available to the user is to change the number when the traffic of unsolicited calls on that number becomes high. But, the user once again has to distribute the new number to the contacts of interest, which is cumbersome.
Due to the aforementioned reasons there is a need for an effective mechanism that helps in preserving privacy of the user's telephone number while providing uninhibited sharing.